


Ours Was the Love

by Alexolotl



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Dead Warden (Dragon Age), F/F, Grey Wardens, Grief/Mourning, Post-Game(s), Weisshaupt Fortress, or somewhere between like dao and da2 okay i'm not being specific
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 13:17:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16873590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexolotl/pseuds/Alexolotl
Summary: The Fortress at Weisshaupt houses the statues of every Grey Warden to give their life ending a Blight. Once, the hall held four. Now, it holds five; a fact Leliana struggles with every day.





	Ours Was the Love

Cold. Silence. Space.

Weisshaupt’s empty hallways seemed to echo with the whispers of Grey Wardens long dead, those who watched from ages past. The high ceilings and the white light of snow that streamed in through the narrow windows gave the place an ethereal quality.

Leliana shivered, and stopped in front of the door. It loomed above her, dark wood studded with iron, and for a moment she was overcome with repulsion. Her knees felt weak; her mouth dry. Steeling herself, she took hold of the handle - heavy and cold even through her dark gloves - and pushed open the door with a long, low creak.

It shut behind her with a click, and Leliana was left alone with just the smell of cold stone and the ghosts of the past. The only place she’d felt anything even close to this was the Grand Cathedral, and that had at least the warm light of faith to soften it. This room - _no, room is too ordinary a word -_ this gallery of the fallen had none of that.

It had five immense statues. They stood, their victories won, their sacrifices made, yet as if their vigil still continued. She held her breath as she walked past one. Two. Three. Four. And stopped. The fifth statue was lighter, more freshly cut than the others, the vast figure it portrayed in a more recent design of Grey Warden armour. Leliana closed her eyes for a long moment, then looked up, and had to put a hand over her mouth.

It was her. Bare-headed, they had insisted, her expression clear and determined. Her pointed ears and vallaslin in full view of the world. The one who ended the Fifth Blight. The Hero of Ferelden. Rionna Mahariel.

“My love,” Leliana whispered, voice choked by the tears that she was unable to hold back. The statue wasn’t _her,_ couldn’t show her shy smile or her faint blush or her laughter like bells or her righteous anger that flared like the sun. It couldn’t bring back any of the things Leliana knew she would never see again.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” she whispered, knowing she was alone in the hall. “We were supposed to travel the world together. We were supposed to collect stories, you and I, to tell the others by their fires, wherever they may have been. You were supposed to take me back to your clan, and make me dinner.” She sank to her knees in front of the statue, feeling as if her legs could no longer support the weight in her heart.

“I have believed for so long that things happen for a reason, that we are guided by the Maker, but… I cannot see his hand in any of this. Why would He take you from me? Why did you have to _leave?”_ she cut herself off as the last word came out in a cry, piercingly loud in the silent hall.

“I loved - I _love_ you. Ours was the love that burnt away the darkness, that brought life to the Blight. Ours was the love that made me safe. That made you happy.” _Your smile -_ Leliana would have given everything, anything, to see her smile again. And not the desperate, apologetic, terrified smile she had given Leliana just moments before plunging her sword into the Archdemon - her _true_ smile, the one they had seen when Alistair said something funny or Zevran told a shocking story around the campfire.

“Ours was the love that was supposed to overcome anything,” Leliana said bitterly, letting her tears fall onto the unforgiving stone. She thought of the story of Alindra and her soldier, of how Rionna’s huge eyes had brimmed with tears upon hearing it the first time. Of how she would ask to hear it and hear it again, sighing as she lay with her head in Leliana’s lap, looking up at the stars described.

Was she there somewhere, waiting across a river of stars for her love?

Leliana looked within for an answer, and found nothing. Standing up on shaking knees, she reached into her cloak and pulled out a single dried sprig of Andraste’s Grace.

‘ _A pretty flower. And they say it’s called Andraste’s Grace… I thought you’d like that.’_ Rionna had said to her with a gentle blush suffusing her tattooed cheeks, a lifetime ago now.

Leliana laid the flower at the feet of the statue and left without looking back.


End file.
